Darling, You Give Love a Bad Name
by silenceofthequeen
Summary: "The difference is that you're not really here."He stated miserably, the dark circles beneath his eyes became more prominent, as if the entire conversation had wearied him thoroughly."You are not here, Caroline. And it made all the difference."He tries everything just to keep her. She pleads for him to let her go. It will be a cycle they will perpetually play. AU/AH. One shot.


**A/N: Angst, ahead.**

The clank of the keys against the glass bowl broke the utter silence of his empty apartment. He shrugged off the leather jacket that was partially drenched from the rain outside and carelessly tossed it on the back of his couch as he passed it by. He watched the bustling city from his fourteenth floor unit with a grim expression. The rain hasn't ceased and had made patterns against the glass wall.

It had been an exhausting day, like it usually is for someone like him, but he would rather be back in the station where the indispensible noise had become a welcome distraction for him. He'd rather listen to the tireless nagging of his captain, even if it meant his ears had to bleed from his incessant tirades about the incapability of the system to eliminate crime and restore peace and order.

He could bury himself in loads of paper work, files to be reexamined, unclosed cases to be solved, mind maps to put together, brainstorming with the team, things that would take his mind off the one thing that had haunted him for almost a year now.

Klaus rubbed his fingers on his temple and let out an exasperated sigh, no matter what he did, something would gravitate him towards the abyss that he couldn't escape. Not that he tried so hard in the first place. There were days when he would linger in that chasm, it had somehow become a soothing balm for him, but he knew without a doubt how unhealthy it was becoming for him.

Ripping his thoughts away from the inevitable disaster he would probably find himself in, he turned towards the small kitchen that was more underused than it had ever been before, only to find a grinning blonde seated on a chair, her elbows propped against the marble counter top, her palms holding her chin delicately.

"You're early." Her voice calmed the tumultuous waves that crashed against each other in his head. "I wasn't expecting you till after midnight. Or did you finally heed my warning that your body needs more rest because you have been exhausting yourself to the limits?" her eyes narrowed but the mirth was ever present in them.

He walked carefully forward, sat across from her, entwined his fingers together in front of him, and returned her bright beam. "If I knew you were so excited to see me, I could've asked the captain to allow me some leeway so I could get home as fast as possible."

Golden curls tumbled across her shoulders as she shook her head and rolled her eyes at him. It was so her that he couldn't help but hold his breath at the sight. She chuckled at his teasing tone but held up a finger, a firm tone replacing her playful one, "Seriously though, last week you were almost caught by a bullet because you had been sluggish," she caught him scoffing but went on nonetheless, "I also heard you had been skipping lunch several days now, making excuses about how you need to have answers on particular cases which I might add were not assigned to you in the first place. If Captain Mills catches you…"

He waved his hand dismissively, "The worst she could do is suspend me for a week or two, harmless really, besides, the team would be handicapped with my absence." He smirked proudly, so sure of himself.

"Oh really?" she crossed her arms over her chest. "Have you forgotten that almost half of your successful ventures were because we were working together?"

"Details." He rebuffed quickly. "We were partners, Caroline. I believe we had given our fair share of labor all through out." He tried not flinch when her name came unbidden from his lips, saying it out loud had never been easy as it did before.

"How are you?" he diverted the attention towards her.

She gave him a tight lipped smile that didn't reach her eyes and his chest tightened uncomfortably, the one that makes him want to break something, anything.

Caroline shook her head and plastered a more believable grin, "I'm alright. It doesn't look as bad as I thought it would be."

Klaus frowned, his hands slid down below the counter so she couldn't see it clenched into fists. But the way his arms bunched, the material of his shirt shaped the muscles underneath, and how his face turned hard, pretty much gave her an idea of how much it took for him to keep his rage under control.

"I'm fine. Really." She added swiftly with the most credible tone. Her eyes momentarily slipped down on her hands before she sighed and locked her gaze with his. "We've talked about this a hundred times, Klaus. I'm okay. Or at least I will be. Eventually. I need you to believe that."

"I can't" he responded in a low defeated tone. "Every time I try to convince myself that everything will be okay, that you will be okay, I just go back to hating myself for basically being the hand that led you to…" he swallowed, unable to rid his throat of the nonexistent lump that lodged in there.

Caroline made a motion to reach for his hand but stopped herself and caught Klaus' face falling more than it already did.

"It's not your fault. I never held it against you nor will I ever will. And I won't get tired of telling you that until you accept it and believe it."

"What do you want from me, love?" he asked, desperation coloring his tone and he shook his head helplessly. "I've been trying."

"You're not." She exclaimed, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, when she opened them, tears gathered on her lower lids. "You're not. That's why I'm still here. You leave your apartment robotically every day, you immerse yourself excessively at work, you had been recklessly and unnecessarily diving into peril every chance you got, you don't look after yourself. Is that how you want to spend the rest of your life? Going through the motions by merely existing and not truly living."

"What's the point?" Klaus snapped through gritted teeth. "It's not like there's enough reasons to go on for."

Caroline regarded him carefully and said in a gentle tone, "Your family is still around. Rebekah's voicemails had been sitting on your phone, unanswered for months, Elijah had been constantly coming at your door every time he's in the city, Kol had been tempting you to come out of this place where you've holed yourself in when you're not in the station. They have been reaching out to you, even Finn had sent you a message or two which is something considering how laconic your older brother can be." She sighed once more and offered him a small, encouraging smile. "You don't have to push them away."

He remained quiet for a while and brought his palms to drag across his face, he let out a heavy exhale and focused his blue orbs on her intensely. "You were my family, Caroline. More than they had ever been."

She chuckled without humor, she had known long ago how difficult it was to persuade him, especially when it came to his family. "That's not true."

He looked at her as if she just said the most absurd thing in the world. "It is for me." His voice was so quiet, she almost didn't catch it. "It had always been that way for me."

The air had been knocked out of her chest, if it were possible. Klaus hadn't been usually a man of words, he conveyed his feelings through actions and in the mere moments that he could crawl out of his skin and say things that could make her heart pound or skip a beat, she would be the one who would be less eloquent. Like she couldn't find the right words to parallel the intensity of his declaration.

They knew each other like the back of their hands. Consequence of being each other's anchor for so many years, one always had the other one's back, they would fight, screaming at the top of their lungs, but a day wouldn't waste before they reconcile. They were best friends. Partners, in the most literal and figurative of sense.

She was a neophyte in the academy when they started being friends, the men would pick on her because they thought she was just some naïve, mindless, ditzy blonde, he would threaten to claw the eyeballs out of them who even as much look at her the wrong way. His protectiveness towards her had been a circulating resource for gossip among their circle of acquaintances and close friends, they had always believed the two of them felt something more for each other than they let on. Klaus and Caroline would just simultaneously roll their eyes and proceed on regaling embarrassing tales about each other and how they swore they wouldn't end up together in the future. Ever.

Well look how that turned out. They never did. But not because they didn't want to.

They graduated with outstanding remarks and were immediately sent to their first assignment just months after that. There, their partnership flourished. There, their partnership ended. In a way, that is.

"You have no idea how much it hurts me to see you being so hard on yourself." Caroline started again after the heavy silence. "And I know that you've been constantly questioned yourself how much you're so undeserving of forgiveness. Well, guess what? There is nothing to forgive." She said it in the most resolute tone but it did not appease him one bit.

He chuckled mirthlessly and rubbed his fingers on his closed lids, "How could you even say that? Sometimes you're too good to be true." The last sentence he added in a more bleak tone. "It is what keeps me up at night, knowing that there will be no parallel universe where I will be able to deserve that forgiveness, no act on Earth that can atone for my sin. For what I did to you."

Caroline groaned loudly, he was just so stubborn, but maybe that's why they fit together seamlessly, they were both unable to let go of an argument without having to say the last word. "You have always reminded me how grateful you are that I had always been so unapologetically honest with you, at times even if it hurts your feelings. What difference does that make now? I'm just as truthful as I was before."

"The difference is that you're not really here." He stated miserably, the dark circles beneath his eyes became more prominent, as if the entire conversation had wearied him thoroughly. "You are not here, Caroline. And it made all the difference."

"I need you to let go, Klaus. I love you too much to bear the fact that you don't see the point in living anymore." Caroline implored, groping with invisible ropes that could harness him back to normalcy.

He schooled his features into a cold, distant appearance then stood up wanting nothing more than to end the conversation that has gone on circles every time she was there. "Sorry to disappoint you, love. Looks like you'd be hanging around for a while."

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_The wound on his outer thigh bled profusely as he pushed himself from the container van he was leaning onto. He was the closest he has ever been to a lead that both he and Caroline had been working on for weeks. What looked like random and unrelated murders across chosen districts summed up to be an organized crime led by a notorious gang leader._

_He cursed as the material of his jeans brushed against the gashed wound but he lifted his feet nonetheless and kept up his stealth as he perused all of his senses to figure out where the identified suspects were hiding._

_Caroline was going to kill him, that's for sure. He had never gone on a mission without her or at least without her consent, they were partners and she would never let him forget that. Until today._

_They had been fighting over some guy that asked Caroline out, according to Klaus, that guy brought nothing but ruin to those around him, backing up his theory, or in his words 'factual information', by telling her how their parents were acquaintances and that he had known said guy since the sandbox. _

_Caroline retaliated about people changing and improving, heck Klaus was a prime example of that. But he just fumed and defended himself by saying that he was different and reiterated that that guy will just break her heart. She left him by the vending machine, fuming and muttering curses under her breath but he just grinned like an idiot, knowing full well that no matter how Caroline abhorred his warnings, she would seriously take what he said into consideration._

_He had always known that he was foolishly, indisputably, outrageously in love with her. He would feel the tiniest amount of guilt sometimes when he would spur the advances of other men towards her and they would have a verbal clash about it for hours but then they'd soon find themselves laughing at the most ridiculous things as if nothing happened. _

_He had always known that when she's ready, she won't be able to deny the fact that their connection strays beyond the realms of friendship. He had always been sure of that._

_And that's what kept him from telling her about his suicide mission._

_The person they were after was the most dangerous one they will have to catch to date. And he will not have her in the line of fire. It was underhanded, he presumes, she would berate him later on for being a sexist, idiotic, and selfish man. But he couldn't lay his mind to rest and focus on the task with her being there._

_He studied the files that were forwarded to him before he left his car, while his phone rang incessantly on the passenger seat, Caroline's name flashed on the screen but he ignored it. He imprinted in his mind the faces and aliases of the people who were paid for the murders. _

_There was an Asian man who sported a pair of glasses to complete the look, making him seem innocent to unawares and went by the name 'Min Ho'. Another man around his early forties, his face almost covered in beard, muscular but stouter than the average man, his eyes had different colors on each side, one was blue and the other one was close to green, they call him 'Two Face'. Another one was a petite woman who could pass up for a teenager, she had golden hair, a pair of delicate hazel eyes, and a charismatic face that could lure unsuspecting victims, her pseudonym, 'Angel Eyes'. The fourth was a brunette, they say she has a Bulgarian accent, olive toned skin, long, auburn hair that she usually wore in curls, but her identity was still unknown._

_She must've been a new recruit if no one had heard about her, but she was the one who was able to nick him while he was busy firing her allies. Bullets ricocheted in the air, explosions rang in the night, he was a one man army, and he didn't want to regret it one bit. He had to stay alive and vigilant until the backup he had requested for three minutes ago, arrives._

_He made a sharp turn from his hiding place when he heard a clutter a few meters away from his spot, he could sense someone hiding two rows of trailers away from him. He hid in the shadows as he surveyed the scene, the pain on his thigh slowly ebbed away by the adrenaline pumping in his veins. A fire was shot in his direction that blew his cover, he retaliated quickly and expertly, sending Two Face on his knees in no time, as his fallen opponent held his wounded limb, he saw a movement from the corner of his eye, a flash of blonde, Angel Eyes._

_On instinct, he fired the gun towards her, two shots. She dropped instantly to the ground, face first. She was accused of being responsible for the last two murders of college boys, their throats slit, their arms bent in unnatural angles, a perfect picture of torture before being left for Death to come carry their souls with him._

_From the distance, he could hear the wail of the sirens come closer and he sported a smug grin, he was able to incapacitate two of them. Surely the captain couldn't be more proud of him._

_He walked with the confidence his wounded limb could afford towards Angel Eyes, only when he turned her on her back, it wasn't the face on the file he studied earlier that he saw._

_It was the face that was remarkably and perpetually etched on his mind from the first time he saw her. It was the face that could light up an entire room no matter how gloomy the mood could be. It was the face that this afternoon was marred with irritation as they dueled relentlessly on her choice of people to date. It was the face that he envisioned himself to wake up to for the rest of his life._

_He was brought down to his knees, an unfathomable plethora of emotions weighing heavily on his shoulders, he wanted to scream but he couldn't find his voice to do it, he wanted to do something, anything, just so he could erase the horrible sight in front of him, but his eyes were zeroed in on the blood gushing out of the holes on her chest. _

_He searched her face, looking for a sign of life, her eyes were closed, her lips pale, her chest unarguably still. Painfully so._

_He hardly heard his comrades breach the scene, voices were muffled, faces were blurred, his senses had abandoned him._

_After all this time protecting her, he was the one to drive a bullet through her chest._

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"Klaus," Caroline's voice drifted gently and halted him from his abrupt retreat from the discussion. "For me?"

He closed his eyes, an internal battle going through his heart and mind that would put the World's greatest wars to shame. He didn't want her to see him break, despite the fact that she completely knows it.

"You know I'd give you anything you would've wanted, Caroline." He stated in a hollow manner with his back still turned to her. "But not this one. Never this one."

Tomorrow the cycle reconvenes. And it will be like nothing happened.

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**I know, the angst is killing me too. Sadly, this will also remain a one shot. Leave me a review, though? Thank you for reading!**


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